RLS/WED occurs more frequently in certain populations, including people with end-stage renal disease, women during pregnancy, and people with iron deficiency. Also, RLS/WED in the elderly and children brings other challenges. Sharing your experiences may be extraordinarily helpful to others.

Hello Friends! I'm happy to announce that Baby Jacob was born on 11/11/11 at 8:42am via C-section. He was 7lbs even and 19" long. He is a beautiful baby boy and we are beside ourselves with joy.

He was born at 37 weeks and altho his apgar scores were very good, about 20 minutes after he was born, he began to turn blue. He was taken to the NICU, given oxygen and diagnosed as having Respiratory Lung Disease. All that was a scary way of saying that his lungs were not quite fully developed and he needed some assistance while they matured. He has been in the NICU for the past week and is scheduled to come home on Sunday. On the day he was born, they gave him a treatment of Surfactant to make his lungs softer and more flexible. Since then, he was on a feeding tube, a cpap machine, oxygen, IV antibiotics and miscellaneous other things. For the first 2 days I couldn't even see what he looked like for all the tubes and wires covering his face. As of today, everything has been removed and he is under watch for the next 24 hours to make sure he can hold his own. If all goes well, Jacob will finally come home on Sunday. Its been a long, hard and stressful week.

Because I am on Methodone for RLS, they have been evaluating Jacob every 6 hours for possible withdrawl symptoms. He has had ZERO withdrawl symptoms. The very best thing I did in this pregnancy was switch to Methodone. My symptoms continue to be under control 100%.
While in the hospital, I never felt judged for taking methodone. It was an excellent experience.

Thanks everyone, for your encouragement throughout this whole pregnancy. I won't be doing it again! But it was a great experience, thanks to great doctors who knew what they were doing and the encouragement from all of you. Jacob is a healthy baby boy with zero abnormalities, diseases, or challenges. We are very blessed and are looking forward to having him home with us.

Welcome to little Jacob. Glad you are all ok. Wish you lots of happiness with your little one.

BETTY/WV

Thanks to rls.org, I have learned so much about my condition. I have received encouragement from my friends here. This is a site I can come to when I am up most of the night, and I vent, and know those who read my messages understand

Congratulations!!! I am glad everything is okay with his lungs now. What a scary experience. I saw your pictures on FB, what a cutie! And I saw that he was in the NICU, I was concerned. I wasn't sure if it was from the Methadone, or from something else. Now I know... and I'm sorry he was having breathing troubles. What a relief to not have any NAS from the Methadone. What dose were you on at delivery? I think knowing this might be helpful to other mothers who may end up on this path.

So happy for you and your family! Good luck with everything, and I hope you soak up every second! They grow up so fast...

A few lessons I learned during this ordeal of treating RLS while pregnant:

1. Methodone was the best choice I could have made to treat my RLS during pregnancy. It covered my symptoms 100%.

2. As long as I stayed under 40mg/day, my baby would have little to no chance of having withdrawl issues right after birth. I was taking 20mg at the time of birth. They tested my baby every 6 hours for signs of withdrawl and he was negative every time.

3. I can remain on methodone while breastfeeding because the baby gets less than half of 1% of my dose of methodone through the breast milk.

4. And there was never a threat of being visited by children's services because of the medication. The hospital staff was very knowledgable about methodone and no one treated me poorly because of it.

5. When I was on Oxycodone during the first 6 months, it was because my RLS doc was nervous to switch to methodone. The Oxy didn't cover my symptoms very well at all. In order to convince my RLS doc to make the switch, I had her consult with my preggo docs. That was the ticket.

6. Throughout the pregnancy, I consulted with Dr. B via email. He proved to be invaluable.

I really hope this helps the next person who has to handle being pregnant while being treated for RLS. The information that is out there is so sparse that I hope a first hand account of my experience is helpful.